INVESTIGATIVE

San Francisco Settles Suit Involving Jeff Adachi Autopsy Dispute

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The city of San Francisco has tentatively agreed to pay $436,000 to a former official with the medical examiner’s office who says he was fired for refusing to alter the autopsy report into the 2019 death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned.

Christopher Wirowek was operations director for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner back in February 2019, when Adachi died at age 59.  He was found unconscious in a North Beach apartment.

Wirowek said he personally oversaw the investigation into a death police originally considered suspicious. The final official autopsy report blamed the toxic effects of cocaine and alcohol on Adachi’s already diseased heart.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but instead I was fired,” said Wirowek in a video posted on the Facebook page of one of his attorneys. Wirowek sued the city in 2020 alleging wrongful termination. He turned down our request for an interview for this story.

In the video and the lawsuit, Wirowek says the day the autopsy report was set to be released, he got a visit from then City Administrator Naomi Kelly.

“She wanted to review the entire investigative autopsy report,” Wirowek said in the Facebook video. “She went line by line – there were some changes – and I said ‘no’….”

In court filings, Wirowek’s attorneys allege that Kelly wanted Wirowek to remove any references to cocaine and to a female companion Adachi was with before he died.

The city said in legal responses that Kelly was simply asking a couple of “innocuous” questions about references to cocaine and never asked about the companion.  Wirowek was fired several months later, the city asserts in legal filings, after being caught mishandling “highly confidential” personnel documents.

Wirowek’s attorneys contend  the document allegations were a pretext for whistleblower retaliation. Wirowek insists the true reason was his refusal to alter the autopsy report. 

“I was fired because I told Miss Kelly  ‘no.’ That I wouldn't falsify Mr. Adachi’s  autopsy report,” Wirowek said in the attorney’s Facebook video post.  

Kelly – who has since left the city -- did not respond to requests for comment, but the city initially called Wirowek’s legal claims “complete fiction.” Documents filed this week with the city, however, confirm the two sides have reached an agreement to settle the suit for $436,000. The city attorney’s office said it considers that sum “an appropriate resolution given the inherent costs of continued litigation.”

The city’s Board of Supervisors still has to formally approve the settlement before it becomes final.

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